Speaker of RoK National Assembly concludes official visit to Vietnam

Speaker of the National Assembly (NA) of the Republic of Korea (RoK) Kim Jin-pyo and his wife left Hanoi on January 18, concluding their seven-day official visit to Vietnam at the invitation of NA Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue.

While in Vietnam, the RoK leader paid tribute to late President Ho Chi Minh at his mausoleum; paid a courtesy call to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong; met with Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh; and held talks with NA Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue.

At these meetings, the Vietnamese leaders said the two countries share a long-standing relationship and many common interests, complementary potential and strengths, and sound growth achievements in the past three decades. There remain potential and large room for the bilateral relations to develop further in the near future, they stressed.

The Vietnamese leaders urged the two sides to continue working together for the effective and practical development of the bilateral cooperation, particularly via increasing the exchange of high-level visits and meetings as well as collaboration between their ministries, sectors and localities.

They said the two countries should promote progress recorded in their parliamentary cooperation over the past time, and exchange and share experiences in legislation to create favourable conditions for Vietnamese businesses and people living and working in the RoK and vice versa.

For his part, Kim lauded the rapid growth of the bilateral relationship, particularly the recent upgrade of the ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership, and hoped that the two sides will build on the achievements of the bilateral relations in politics, economy, culture, people-to-people exchange, and defence-security.

The RoK highly valued Vietnam’s position in the region’s new strategies and initiatives, including the Korea-ASEAN Solidarity Initiative, the Speaker affirmed, pledging to make further  contributions to the future growth of the RoK-Vietnam ties.

The Vietnamese and Korean leaders agreed to make efforts to lift two-way trade to 100 billion USD in 2023 and 150 billion USD by 2030 by capitalising on their existing bilateral and multilateral free trade agreements. They consented to step up cooperation in the fields of semiconductor, digital transformation, energy security, and just energy transition.

The Korean leader also visited the southern economic hub of Ho Chi Minh City, Ninh Binh province and Hai Phong city in the north. In Hanoi, he and Hue cut the ribbon to inaugurate the headquarters of the Vietnam - Korea Institute of Science and Technology, a symbol of sci-tech and innovation cooperation between the countries.